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Now in development for film by 20th Century Fox, award-winning CyberStorm is a new classic of apocalyptic fiction that depicts, in realistic and sometimes terrifying detail, what a full scale cyber attack against present-day New York City might look like from the perspective of one family trying to survive it.

Mike Mitchell, an average New Yorker working to keep his family together, finds himself fighting just to keep them alive when a string of disasters shreds the world around them...the Internet and communication networks go down...a deadly viral epidemic rages across the country...then a monster snowstorm cuts New York off from the world.

In the chaos, rumors fly about a foreign attack, but even this becomes unimportant as Mike and his family struggle to survive in the wintry tomb of a doomed New York.

CyberStorm is an edge-of-your-seat view into one family's battle for life in a ruined mega-city, with millions of readers voting it into the top-20 of GoodReads in its category. It comes from the mind of Matthew Mather, a leading cybersecurity expert and author of Darknet and the science fiction series Atopia Chronicles.

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"CyberStorm is such a page turner. I couldn't wait to see what happened
next!" - Adria Fraser, book reviewer for Amazing Stories

From the Author

I'm excited to announce that on July 12th, 20th CENTURY FOX acquired the film rights to CyberStorm in a "major" film deal -- more news to come soon...

I'd like to thank my editor, Gabe Robinson (previously at Harper Collins in NYC but now freelancing) for his incredible help in getting CyberStorm assembled and edited. I'd also like to thank my small army of dozens of beta readers who combed through the early manuscripts--this is as much my novel as all of theirs, and a testament to the power of the internet in shaping new media. I have a full list of everyone who helped me contained in the novel itself.

Finally, I'd like to thank all of the members of the cybersecurity community who lent me their time and insight into making this as realistic a scenario as possible of what a full-scale cyber event could like. I have named several key individuals at the start of the book.

More About the Author

Translated into sixteen languages, with 20th Century Fox now developing his second novel, CyberStorm, for a major film release, Matthew Mather's books are sold worldwide. He began his career at the McGill Center for Intelligent Machines, then started several high-tech ventures in everything from computational nanotechnology to electronic health records, weather prediction systems to genomics, and even designed an award-winning brain-training video game. He now works as a full-time author of speculative fiction.

This is really a tale of two books - the first 90% was great and, without having a spoiler, the last 5-10% was a little disappointing as if the author changed gears in the story or was tired of writing. The author does a great job of getting you into the minds of the characters, and paints a picture of a possible cyber meltdown I found realistic and quite frightening if it were to occur. You feel the raw emotions of the characters as they have their highs and lows (a lot of lows and suffering), and I had a hard time putting it down.

I picked this up for 99 cents in the Kindle store, and despite my comment above on the last 5-10% of the novel I enjoyed it, and certainly received a heck of a lot more entertainment value than 99 cents. If you like to read realistic doomsday-type fiction, I would recommend this one!

Cyberstorm has a realistic plot and believable characters. I enjoyed the thought process behind the scenario; what really would happen if a virus took out technology? Would cities be able to revert to pre-technology to survive, or would people turn back into animals and wind up killing each other off?

Pros: I found myself coming back to pick this book up when there were other things I could have been doing (like housework). I wanted to see how it all played out. The characters were enjoyable, and several of them I found myself pulling for while others I could have pushed off the fire escape with little remorse myself. Makes for a better story when you can see the people in 3D in your head.

Cons: There were times I thought there was some redundancy in the events, the same things happening again and again without taking the story forward; I'm glad I powered through because things did get interesting again. Closer to the end, though, I felt the story lacked continuity in that each chapter showed it covered several days yet the scenes in that chapter looked to evidence one day. I was a bit confused by that.

The epilogue might have read better had it been written in the order it happened instead of jumping ahead and then looking back at what had happened between the end of the story and the beginning of the epilogue.

If you're in the mood for an easy read with an underlying tension from a topic that could potentially happen, pick this one up. I was gifted this book to read and asked for my honest opinion; having said that, looking back I wouldn't have been sad about spending a few dollars for the entertainment. Any book that can have me coming back is worth the price of admission.

I have recently been on an "End of the World" binge (zombies, EMP, nuclear, disease, etc) and was getting a bit fed up with the genre. This book has re-kindled (pun intended) my interest and left me wanting more. It just seems a lot more realistic then other books in this category because I find the pace/speed of events and descriptions of the societal breakdown to be a lot more plausible. Without adding too many spoilers, I find that there is just a good mix of cyberwar, confusion, collapse and hope. All of this with a bit of violence and desperation thrown in for good measure. I started caring (and sometimes hating) many of the mian characters in this book. It is a very good, quick read for anybody interested in the genre in addition to being a way above average read for anybody else.

What if your life suddenly became a challenge for survival? What if you heard that a foreign computer code, designed to knock out the U. S. energy grid, has been embedded in U. S. power plant control systems? What if the everyday things you take for granted, like water, electricity, and food, are no longer available and you have to scrounge, steal, or get them any way you can? Not a pleasant thought, is it?

Author Matthew Mather's latest novel, CYBERSTORM, may answer these questions for you. And you may wish you hadn't asked. Mike Mitchell thought he had problems with his wife Lauren's parents. That was before he heard reports that websites had been hacked and defaced, and a code designed to knock out the U. S. energy grid was embedded in power plant systems. Rumors suggest that China is responsible. People are dying too from what is suspected as bird flu. Soon Mike, Lauren, and their two-year-old son, Luke, along with their neighbors are scrounging for food, heat, and water, while trying to figure out what is going on and who is responsible. With the passing days and no answers, just starving people, Mike discovers just how far some will go to survive. Imagine killing for a handful of peanuts. Some of the scenes are rather gory, though they do show how desperation can bring out the worst in people and also the best.

I read mostly books for young adults and children because that's what I write, but CYBERSTORM caught my attention and once I started reading the book I was glad I did. The scary thing, in my opinion, is that the events in the novel could be possible. Think how much we depend on our computer network, and how our world would change if some power gained control of the banks, businesses, and even our government.Read more ›